Sprints, by definition, are a timebox. You’re supposed to say, “Pencils down!” at the end of the sprint, show your work and reflect. One of the big problems with new-to-agile teams is their inability to finish work inside a sprint. Each team is unique. However, I’ve seen these causes most often: Team members multitask, so […]
I’ve been coaching several teams with a problem: they like to work in iterations. And, they have milestones that are not on a milestone boundary. What should they do? (I suggested flow and you should have heard their response. Well, maybe not.) Here’s why people want these milestones: The team can’t deliver (for whatever reason) as continuous
I keep encountering confusion about what scaling agile is. I’m writing what I think is a 4-part series to define it so we all talk about the same thing. When I ask people to define what they mean by scaling agile, they talk about these possibilities: They have agile developers. They want agile testers. This is
I was at an experience report at Agile 2016 last week, Scaling Without Frameworks-Ultimate Experience Report. One of the authors, Daniel Vacanti said this: Flow focuses on unblocking work. Iterations (too often) focus on the person doing the work. At the time, I did not know Daniel’s twitter handle. I now do. Sorry for not
The big problem with hardware going agile is that the risks in hardware are not homogeneous. Hardware and mechanical engineering are on different cycles from each other, and they are each different from software. Even with each discipline, the risks are different when the teams collaborate together on one deliverable and when the entire program
Once you have a roadmap/product backlog for hardware, the teams need to know what to do and when. As a program manager, program product owner, or other interested party, you might want to know where the work is. The roadmap shows the big picture. The demos and team-based backlogs show the details and interdependencies One
I’m writing like mad, trying to finish the program management book. I’m working on the “Integrating Hardware” chapter. The problem is that hardware comes in several varieties: Mechanical engineering Silicon (part of electrical engineering) FPGA (which looks like software to me) Each component (yes, I do call these components) has a different value at different
When I teach agile, I explain I like small and short stories. I want to see value in the product every day. Many developers can’t do that. That’s because they have interdependencies with other teams—not developers on their team, but other teams. They can’t implement in the way the picture next to this shows: small,
I spoke with a Scrum Master the other day. He was concerned that the team didn’t finish their work in one 2-week iteration. He was thinking of making the iterations three weeks. I asked what happened in each iteration. Who wrote the stories and when, when did the developers finish what, and when did the testers
I’m writing part of the program management book, talking about how you need to keep everything small to maintain momentum. Sometimes, to keep your work small, teams move from iterations to flow. Here are times when you might consider moving from iteration to flow: The Product Owner wants to change the order of features in